The present invention relates to an artillery gun having a heavy weapon that is disposed on a carrier vehicle. Such an artillery gun is described in the European patent EP 0 331 980 B1 in an embodiment as an armored howitzer. This armored howitzer has a carrier vehicle that is embodied as a tracked vehicle, with a rotatable turret that is disposed behind the center of the vehicle and on which is disposed a heavy weapon that is pivotable in elevation. Disposed within the vehicle, in the region of the center of the vehicle, are projectile magazines in which the projectiles are upright relative to the base of the vehicle, while leaving free a passageway that extends essentially in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. An automatic projectile feed mechanism is present via which a respective projectile is grasped out of the projectile magazine and, accompanied by rotation and orientation, is conveyed in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle into the region behind the end of the weapon, and there, accompanied by orientation in azimuth and elevation to the direction of the weapon at any given time, is raised into the loading position. The projectile feed mechanism has a projectile transfer arm that is pivotably mounted on the trunnion of the weapon and is moveable, independently of the as a ramming device being disposed on the free end of the transfer arm in the region behind the weapon. In the raised position of the projectile transfer arm, the charger is aligned relative to the axis of the bore of the weapon, and in the lowered position of the projectile transfer arm is oriented in the vertical direction. Further portions of the automatic projectile feed mechanism are disposed in the interior of the vehicle, and in particular a projectile transporter having a transport arm on the end of which is disposed a pivotable gripping device, as well as a standby member that disposed behind it, is displaceably guided in a transport rail, and can be disposed in a transfer position parallel to the charger. By means of the projectile transporter, the projectiles are removed from a projectile magazine and, accompanied by rotation and orientation, are conveyed by the standby member and the charger into the region behind the end of the weapon and are raised into the loading position. Further details of the known artillery gun are described in the above-cited document.
This artillery gun, which is generally known and introduced under the characterization PzH 2000, has a transport mass of altogether 49 t, and cannot be divided for transport in such a way that the individual parts have a maximum transport weight of 27 t and can thus also be transported with medium-sized aircraft.
Proceeding from the armored howitzer described in the above-cited document, the object of the invention is to provide an artillery gun having a heavy weapon disposed on a carrier vehicle that on the whole has a lighter weight construction and in addition can be divided into numerous parts, without great expense, for transport with medium-sized aircraft.